


A Breath of Air

by ohmytheon



Series: Rebelcaptain AUs [7]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Escape, F/M, Gen, Imperial Jyn Erso
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 22:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9568940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmytheon/pseuds/ohmytheon
Summary: Jyn has lived nearly her entire life under the strict hand of the Empire, but when she crosses paths with a captured Rebel spy by chance, she has to ask herself: would she rather live as a pampered prisoner or risk dying to get a taste of freedom?





	

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was basically putting Jyn and Cassian in the roles of Finn and Poe in The Force Awakens, where Finn is a defector and needs Poe's pilot skills to escape. I had a lot of fun with this one...until my computer crashed and I lost all of it, so I had to start over. It wasn't as fun the second time around when I was so close to being finished.

Jyn had never been meant to live under the iron fist of the Empire. She was a flower that could not blossom in dark, cramped places; she needed light and freedom, two things that the Empire would never give her. She could not be like her father, who played the role of downtrodden and beaten scientist so well that even she sometimes wondered if he truly was acting. She felt things too deeply, saw the hurts that the Empire caused, and she ached. And so she grew up hard and fast under the watchful eye of the enemy, stretching as much as she could with the space that she was given.

But mostly, she grew up resentful, hiding anger in her heart until it overflowed and bled through to the surface. She was not as good at lying as her father. She would always be a fighter, as her mother had been. When she smiled, she bared her teeth and she looked more ready to snarl and bite than shake hands and laugh. She was not a pretty little thing that could be toyed with. She was difficult to crack and let no one in. It was a lonely life, but one that she fought for. She knew that she was afforded more things than a typical subject of the Empire, considering who her father was, but that didn’t give her any illusions about what she was in the end.

She was a prisoner. Of that, she had no doubt. She did what she could, lived as much as she could, but the constraints were always there, visible or not. Her father was a prisoner and so was she. But she had been born in a prison, and so she knew what to do in order to survive. She refused help from anyone, not wanting to appear weak or needy. The Empire could not break her. She would find a way to escape.  Until then, she had to play her part and try not to fight anyone in the process.

Life remained smothering and dreams impossible – until one Captain Cassian Andor stepped into her life.

Or well, forcibly shoved into her path.

Jyn was skulking around the base, trying to find something to do that wouldn’t land her in hot water, when two storm troopers pushed a shuffling man in chains so hard that he stumbled and crashed directly into her. The two of them went sprawling to the ground, him unable to catch himself because of his bonds and her because she’d been caught unawares. He landed heavily on her, his hands awkwardly jammed into her gut, and his face so close that his nose smashed into hers.

She was swearing hard enough to murder someone by the time the storm troopers pulled him off of her, apologizing all the while, but the chained man was silent as he stared at her with thinly veiled suspicion and curiosity. Ignoring the storm troopers' attempts to help her, Jyn pulled herself to her feet and then swiped any dust off of her, glaring at the man, but still he said nothing. She didn’t expect an apology from him, nor did she want one, but his dead silence was unexpected. She stormed off without another word.

It was only until the next day did she find out that the prisoner’s name was Cassian Andor, thanks to a death trooper with an ill-advised crush on her. Jyn spent the entire day thinking about him. His dark hair, days’ old scruff, those cold and intelligent dark eyes – likely the kind of man her Mama would’ve warned her about. Stick him in an Imperial Officer’s uniform and he would’ve looked like someone capable of tossing a dissenter out of the airlock without hesitation. Very dangerous, calculating, and sharp.

And he was apparently an Intelligence Officer in the Rebel Alliance. If there was ever a person her father would want her to stay away from, it would be him. Who knew what would be done to her if she was found even just associating with him. She wasn’t exactly known for her loyal and high opinions of the Empire after all.

It was for these very reasons that Jyn knew that this was her chance. If she was ever going to get out from underneath the Empire’s thumb, this was it. Would she rather die fighting for her freedom or live as a prisoner? Her mother had chosen the former. Some days, Jyn resented her selfishness; other times, she admired her mother’s bravery.

The death trooper uniform that she’d stolen didn’t fit her perfectly, but it would do in a pinch. Jyn wasn’t an exceptional liar, but she could act decently as long as it involved minimal talking, which death troopers did. It also gave her more leeway, as the storm trooper guarding Andor’s cell was very deferential and asked little questions about why she needed to see the prisoner. Death troopers were linked with power.

When she stepped inside, Andor sat up on his cot, silently eyeing her with disdain. She knew right away that he wouldn’t talk, not with her like this. She could see from the bruises, burn mark visible at his collarbone, and dried blood over his left eye that he was not prone to talking even under torture. So she did the one thing she knew a regular Imperial soldier would never do: she took off her helmet.

At that, Andor jumped to his feet. “What are you doing in here?”

A strange question, like he was in the position to make demands, but she supposed he was used to asking questions. “Doesn’t matter,” she replied dismissively as she glanced back at the door to make sure it was still closed. She stamped her left foot down, thinking of the information hidden inside the sole of the boot, and her heart thumped. Paranoia was beginning to worm its way into her mind already, but she shut it down as best as she could.

“The daughter of an Imperial scientist comes into my cell parading as a death trooper, I think it very much matters.”

Jyn clenched her fists as she jerked her eyes back to him. So he knew who she was. Of course he did. He was an Intelligence Officer. She wondered what else he knew – what information he had stored away up there that he shouldn’t have had. She saw his eyes – dangerous, dangerous – and tore her gaze away from him. Now was not the time to get distracted. “Can you fly a ship or are you only good at subterfuge and being annoying?”

“Depends on the ship,” Andor replied evenly. “Why?”

The idea of asking for help was abominable, but she had no other choice. “I don’t know how to fly,” Jyn admitted, glaring at the wall behind him. “I wasn’t allowed to learn anything so that it would keep me…dependent and grounded.”

Andor stepped closer to her. He wasn’t shackled anymore and she knew from the way that he moved that, despite any injuries, he was capable of hurting her. She knew how to fight, but he knew how to kill. Still, she did not back down; instead, she lifted her chin to stare back at him.

“You want to escape,” Andor said quietly.

“Yes.”

“You need my help.”

Jyn gritted her teeth. “Yes.”

“How do I know this is not a trap?” Andor asked, folding his arms. He leaned back to assess her, making her feel more exposed than she had ever felt in her life, like he was picking her apart piece by piece.

“Why would this be a trap?” Jyn demanded defensively. “I’m risking my life here! It’s not that I’m just asking for your help to escape; I’m offering you a way to get out of her with your life and your mind intact.”

Andor smiled down at her. It was not terribly unpleasant, but it rattled her nonetheless. “Sending a pretty damsel in distress into my cell to convince me to let my guard down sounds like a good attempt at getting me to open up.”

Jyn opened her mouth to protest furiously, but then she snapped it shut. A pretty damsel in distress? Is that what he thought when he saw her? “Call me that one more time and I’ll knock you clean out.”

“I would not be much of a pilot if you did that,” Andor pointed out in an infuriatingly collected voice. She had a feeling that neutral tone was something that he typically defaulted to. It was going to piss her off.

“Do you want my help or not?” Jyn questioned.

Andor held out his hands, palms up and wrists pressed together, the universal sign of being bound. “I am at your command.”

As he gazed down at her, she refused to look at him as she replaced the shackles around his hand so it would look more convincing him while they traveled to the hanger. From there, she could only hope that he was as slick as his mouth. Jyn herself had learned how to creep silently unnoticed throughout the base despite typically standing out. She knew how to hide when it counted. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face the door. It was now or never. There would be no going back after this.

“Jyn,” Andor piped up, hearing her name tearing her out of her thoughts. “Your helmet.”

She glanced down at the death trooper helmet in her hands. “Oh.” She hadn’t put it back on, so lost in her nervousness. She put the helmet on, taking comfort in the anonymity it offered her. “You’re good at this spy thing, aren’t you?”

Andor shrugged. “You get used to it.”

“That how you’re so calm?” Jyn grumbled.

“Spies do not have a long life expectancy,” Andor told her unflinchingly. He was not scared or upset by this fact; he had clearly accepted it a long time ago. But for some reason, it hurt her. It made her think of her mother, who had to have known that she was going to die the moment she left eight year-old Jyn on her own to face Orson Krennic and his death troopers. She had accepted it as well and look where it had gotten them. Jyn wanted to think her sacrifice - anyone’s sacrifice mattered – but it was hard to think that when even the person making it didn’t seem to be affected by it.

What had Andor done and seen to make him think this way? Did he not have any hope left or was he just running? Was she? What was the point in trying to escape, in fighting, if she did not?

Jyn huffed, turning away from him. “Well try not to die until after you fly us out of here, got it?” Maybe lying wasn’t so difficult as long as she pretended to be something else. Like not scared. Not helpless. Not alone.


End file.
